Tim Mantoini photographs Calvin Johnson for the cover of EA Sports Madden 2012 in Times Square during draft week.

One thing I love about photography is that I am always learning, always being challenged and never know what tomorrow might bring.

The highlight of my year was shooting Calvin Johnson for the cover of EA Sports Madden 2012 in Times Square during draft week. The shoot requires a ton of preparation, organization and a bit of luck from the weather gods.

Our shoot day began at 12AM when our permit took effect and the crew of twenty-five from DPS productions began building our outdoor field and stage throughout the night. This stage would first become the broadcast platform for ESPN's Sports Nation when the cover athlete would be announced.

This year the fan voting came down to Cam Newton and Calvin Johnson in the final and I had no idea who we would be photographing. In preparation for this, we needed to arrange for both athletes’ uniforms to be in New York and have dressing rooms set up for each.

Once Calvin was announced as the winner, we had 30 minutes for the Sport's Nation crew to breakdown their set and for my crew to build the still photography set on the stage. To prepare for this, we set up all of our lights earlier in the day and measured out exactly where lights, stands, panels, flags, power packs and camera would be placed. All lights were
pre-metered are power pack settings recorded so there was not guess work when we rebuilt the set.

We had a total of about 30 minutes with Calvin on camera once the shoot began and ran him though a shot list of both portrait and action photographs. Russell Wilson (currently the QB of The Seahawks) was kind enough to come out and throw passes to Calvin as he worked up a sweat.

We shot the job with both medium format and 35mm digital, using strobes so we could overpower the ambient light in Times Square and control the lighting. Once our shoot was over, a crew of twenty plus came back in to break down the stage, tents, and security railing so we could be out of Times Square by midnight when our 24-hour permit expired.
Tim Mantoani is a freelance corporate and editorial photographed based in San Diego. You can see examples of Tim’s work at his SportsShooter.com member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=1301.

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